Handmade by Carolyn

Kitchen witch

10/11/2012 11:00 pm \ 29 Comments \ Carolyn

Some kitchen couture!!
With all the gorgeous aprons popping up in the sewing blogging world at the mo’ I thought I should show why I did not take part in the big sew-along this time… you see; I have a very nice little selection of perfectly lovely handmade goodnesses to choose from when it comes to cooking-related apparel; already!
All of which are of quite high sentimental value to me since they were hand-crafted by my two favourite ladies in my life; my Mum and my daughter Cassie.
I own two aprons and one pair of oven mitts. Actually I have one other pair of oven mitts too, cruddy old ones which I actually use. The ones Cassie made are too good to muck up 🙂 But I do wear the aprons.
They are both quite simple in line and style BUT the divinity is in the details.
Firstly; the striped apron above was handwoven and made by my mother, and I have been using it all my adult married life.
It is all cotton; the fabric handwoven by Mum on a big floor loom in a plain weave; and has twill tape attached for the neck bizzo and the waist ties.

I just love the colours Mum chose 🙂

Secondly; I have an apron and oven mitts set; made by Cassie when she was in year 11 for an Art assignment.

This was term project, culminating in this apron and oven mitt set, a framed painting, and a whole portfolio of sketches. The name of the project is Eve’s Temptation… thus the sprinkling of cherries (innocence) and apples (temptation) over the textiles. The fruit is all embroidered in three different reds, plus yellow and black, and is richly textured.

The embroidered bits were all created by Cassie devoting hours to madly feverish back-and-forth sewing on my daggy little sewing machine, that ahem, does not do embroidery. It overheated and broke down during the saga, which was pretty devastating to both of us, for entirely different reasons!… but we won’t dwell on that melancholy time; my machine was repaired, Cassie finished the project with a fresh perspective on respecting other people’s property, and we remained friends …. happily ever after etc etc!
The black designs are screen-printed and with some random areas of machine embroidery for a bit of added texture, and Eve’s red lips are embroidered too. Also all done on my very ordinary non-embroidery machine.

So you can see I’m pretty right in the apron department. I am so lucky to have such clever creative women in my family!

(I am also wearing here my Bamboo shoot top from Pattern Magic; and my curtaining skirt from Vogue 1247)

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: apron, Cassie, daily outfit, embroidery, handwoven, Mum, printing, weaving

Thank you

10/11/2012 3:00 pm \ 22 Comments \ Carolyn

I just wanted to say a very big thank you for all those kind comments … I read them all with so much pleasure and felt very much supported and loved by everyone. You are all so lovely!
It is so very silly how the smallest drop of vitriol in amongst a whole crowd of sweet and kind comments can somehow be so disproportionately effective in bringing one’s spirits crashing down, intellectually we know it should not be so but we humans are sensitive creatures and it is just so. So silly!
So, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart and wish to send you all a big big beautiful bouquet of gorgeousness right back at you!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: flower arrangement, random life stuff

feeling blue

09/11/2012 6:19 am \ 121 Comments \ Carolyn

I took this photo during our holiday on Rotto but never put it in with the other travel wardrobe photos… the blue skirt was appearing too often. But I still think it’s a nice photo so I decided to post it after all.

Details:
Raincoat: self-drafted, of non breathable nylon ripstop, details here
Top; top “a” from shape shape, formerly known as Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa, of white cotton, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1170, blue corduroy, details here, my review of this pattern here, and see this skirt styled in 6 different ways here
Thongs; Havaiana

I’ve been a bit sad and have lost some of the blogging joy over the past few days… thanks to a very sarcastic nasty comment on my blog I discovered recently. A few might have seen a recent blog post I wrote about it … but probably not many because I deleted it soon after publishing. I also deleted the mean comment too eventually; Craig told me I should have left it to allow everyone to read it, but rude comments upset me. I just don’t want hurtful stuff on my blog. I usually prefer to be all Positive Pollyanna.
The commenter took exception to my review of Natsuno Hiraiwa’s Pattern book Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, or shape shape, which she interpreted as a personal attack on her character. Apparently she was an author of one of those scathing reviews on amazon about Natsuno Hiraiwa’s book. Of course it goes without saying that she had nothing nice to say about my own makes from the book! She outlined her alleged long sewing history, I guess as a means of “proving” her superior level of sewing expertise, thus granting herself the authority to override my positive review of the book. Despite admitting again she hadn’t even used the book. She classed me a “spoilt Anglo Saxon sewer” (and btw I have used Burda magazine patterns a lot too), and very sarcastically dissed the skirt I had made, skirt “d” pictured at the top of my review.
So.
I don’t like to drone on about my own history since I prefer for my handiwork to speak for itself… plus one thing I’ve learnt from the internet is how lots of people can talk until the cows come home about how utterly expertly fabulous they are at something without ever offering any evidence to support their claims; so I will not. I have posted about some of my really old stuff under the label ancient history.
However, for the last three years I upped the ante to the max and took on sewing my entire wardrobe; and this has been documented pretty thoroughly here on my blog. I have not bought any clothes in all that time. In my real life, I am literally the only person I know who sews all my own clothes. I really enjoy doing this; I love clothes and I love the challenge of creating them myself, and it gives me something to do in my spare time. I’m a busy person, and don’t like to be still, so sewing keeps me happily and productively occupied in the hours when I am not doing my official work in the office, cooking, housework, and on the weekends when my husband, who works very long hours, is on call or at work.
Blogging about it started out in a small documentative way; but has built up to become so much more to me, a community of wonderful like-minded people, with whom I share a common love.
Of course, I know I am very lucky and undoubtedly I am spoilt in many many aspects of my life BUT …. I’ve still put in many hours to get to the level of sewing expertise I am at, and I put in quite an effort to make things the best I possibly can.
I also put in quite an effort to present my creations in a fun, lighthearted and interesting way here, and to make my blog the best it can be. I’m not the sort to make a half-hearted effort. And I prefer positivity over negativity.
Anyway, I don’t even know why I’m baring my soul defensively in this way… just feeling a bit down I s’pose. I hope I am not over-sharing in an embarrassing way.

(I wrote this a few days ago, and I’m feeling more cheerful now 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, random life stuff

Seafoam and sand set

04/11/2012 11:00 pm \ 37 Comments \ Carolyn

Remember my self-drafted bra? Well this was bound to happen. Once I had started producing some bras with nice, properly finished interiors; the days of that far-from-perfect bra were numbered. When I learnt how things were supposed to be done, thanks to KwikSew 3300; those cobbled-together insides became painful to my eyes…
So, ta da! I’ve made a new(ish) set.
Y’know what? I absolutely LOVE the fact that the two undies both match the bra, but are not identical to each other! You can tell that they all go together, like one happy family; but each has its own personality. Like; they are sisters, but not twins.
Will definitely do this again 🙂
I took apart the old bra, and re-used as much of the lace as I could, as well as the half-sized padded bra cups and the hook and eye closure. I bought new underwires since the previous ones were too short for this pattern.
For the supplementary fabric I used some lovely soft sand-coloured bamboo jersey leftover from my scrumpled leggings, and had just enough to cut out another pair of undies, using McCalls 2772. I added little scraps of the lace in at the sides of the new knickers before sewing on the elastic; to tie them in with the rest of the set.

Both the fabrics are originally from Fabulous Fabrics.

Y’all know how I like complete and matching sets in my lingerie drawer …. hey, we all have our quirks right? Mine is to have matching lingerie sets; and the two matching knickers per bra combo is pretty much mandatory to my continued sense of balance and order in the world. I’m quite particular in that way 🙂
Now this set matches my criteria.
And it is finished nicely.
I am at peace.

the nitty gritty…
For the first time I made view A of KwikSew 3300 (my review of this pattern here), with the lace upper cup and a stretch knit lower cup, and once again altered the pattern slightly to allow me to sandwich the padded half-cups inside the lower cup pieces. I used a bit of skinny ribbon for the stabiliser on the lace upper cup. It has no give, and the piece doesn’t fit the top of the bra exactly; so I found it necessary to first baste this, easing the lace to fit, then to stitch over my basting stitches.
The underwire casing was made from ice-blue shot cotton, leftover from this top.

The jersey lining of the lower cup “looks” funny; a bit bobbly and boinging out like a trampoline over the concave inside of the moulded cup, but obviously the soft stretch fabric moulds to your body when you are wearing it. I can’t think of any way to force it to follow the curve; short of gluing it or quilting it down to the cup. And there’s no way I’m going to go to those lengths when it actually fits and feels fine when it’s on!

Now for the Tanga lace panties; although they look virtually identical to how they did previously…well, I hope they do!… these too have been taken apart and altered…
Why?
This is kinda hard for me, since I absolutely hate to bag a pattern, particularly an independent little pattern from someone kind enough to put a free downloadable pattern up on the internet, from the goodness of their heart, for everybody to enjoy. Such a generous gesture does not deserve a bagging. But the pattern, as it was, did not totally work for me…. why? because the crotch has a front-to-back central seam, combined with NO elasticated leghole edges to help keep the crotch edges… er, out, and apart from each other. It doesn’t take much imagination to extrapolate; and see that that makes for an enormously uncomfortable pair of knickers, that necessitates one having to find plenty of inconspicuous moments in one’s day to hoink that wretched crotch seam out from where it has no business being. The liner is one-piece, but is too flimsy to make a heck of a lot of difference, unfortunately.
Moral of the story; beware of knickers with a central crotch seam.
So I removed the old crotch and constructed a new one. I used the one-piece liner pattern piece to cut a new knit liner, and also for a new, stretch elastic crotch. I salvaged some more of the decorative stretch lace border from the old bra, cut two pieces to fit the length of the inside lace edge on the crotch which translates to about 1cm short of the outer edge measurement and sewed it along, stretching it along the outer edge to fit, gathering the side edges in a touch.

I didn’t have enough of the original lace to cut a new crotch piece or I would have used it! I had to improvise, using white stretch lace with a over-layer of pale blue poly chiffon; the latter cut a bit bigger all round and sewn on loosely to account for the fact that it does not have stretch in itself. I think it blends in ok. Would you even notice that the fabric was different without this close-up shot?

And y’know what?
Success!!
Using the liner piece to cut a one-piece crotch, and sewing border strips of stretch lace on at the sides to pull them in a bit…. it’s a very tiny adjustment to the ultra-cute lace Tanga knicker pattern, but one that renders them a heck of a lot more comfortable imo. In future versions I will definitely be doing this again! 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Kwik Sew 3300, lingerie, McCalls 2772, Tanga, Wardrobe Refashion

Lemon macarons

04/11/2012 6:30 am \ 19 Comments \ Carolyn

It was inevitable….

The lemon glut continues.

Coupla lemon cakes a week. Every chicken dish is lemon chicken. Lemon juice squirted on the barbecued fish, whether the kids like it or not. All who visit invariably comment on our lovely lemon tree, and are quickly put on the spot.

Me: “Would you like some lemons??” (innocently, but with crazy grin)

Hapless visitor: “Oh, er, yes ple….”

and I’m off, grabbing a bag, stuffing a dozen lemons in it.

“Here you go!” thrusting it into their only politely enthusiastic arms. Visitor makes a mental note not to come around again until they’ve used up the lemons from the last time….

and now:

Lemon macarons with lemon curd filling

100g egg whites, allowed to sit covered at room temperature for 3 days
30g castor sugar
5g powdered egg white (if you can’t get it, Pavlova Magic works)
125g almond meal
200g pure icing sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tblsp finely grated lemon rind

Sift the icing sugar, baking powder and almond meal. It takes a long time to sift the almond meal and you have to push it through with a spoon but it should mostly pass through the sieve eventually. Discard the small quantity of lumpy bits that do not pass through the sieve. Combine castor sugar and powdered egg white (or Pavlova Magic) in a separate little bowl.

Whisk the egg whites until firm and stiff enough to keep its shape when you turn the bowl upside down, I prefer to whisk by hand. Gradually add the castor sugar/powdered egg white mix whisking continuously and vigorously after each addition.

Add the icing sugar/baking powder/almond meal mix in five batches, stirring until mixed each time. Lastly, stir in the lemon rind.
Transfer mixture to a piping bag and pipe rounds onto a baking sheet or baking paper, leaving an inch between each round, and let them sit on the bench for one hour or until they have developed a “skin” and do not feel sticky to the touch.
Bake at 120C for 6 minutes, turn the tray around, bake for another 6 minutes then remove from the oven. Slide the baking sheet off the tray and onto the bench; partly so you can cook the next batch, but also the cold bench stops the cooking process in its tracks. When they are completely cold, peel them carefully off the paper.

for the filling: (this recipe has appeared here before)

rind and juice of 4 lemons
6 eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
125g butter

Lightly whisk the eggs and sugar together in a saucepan, then add the other ingredients. Whisk continually over a medium heat until the mixture has thickened to a custard-like texture then allow to cool in the pan. Decant into sterilised jars and refrigerate until set completely.

Spread a little onto a macaron like spreading jam thickly on bread, then stick another macaron on top.

Thoughts:
This time I weighed the egg whites… it’s occurred to me that this minor detail might actually be integral to the success of the recipe! I guess I lucked out in this respect before, since 3 egg whites of the type I usually buy turned out to be pretty close to 100g!

In all honesty I didn’t enjoy these quite as much as my previous efforts; the vanilla, coconut and berry fruit flavours. Maybe the natural sourness of citrus isn’t the most crash-hot pairing with the delicate almond flavour of macarons. Maybe we are just getting a bit lemon-ed out.

Maybe this is my swan-song in the macaron department. Once I’ve sorta conquered something tricky in cooking I tend to lose interest.
Woa.
Did I actually use the word “conquer” with regard to my cooking prowess? HA!! Oh I totally crack myself up sometimes. Imagining generations of French pastry chefs spinning in their graves right now…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: macarons, recipe

Blood Orange

02/11/2012 11:00 pm \ 33 Comments \ Carolyn

Is it a given that all my Vogue
1247 tops will have citrus-y nomenclature enforced on them?
First clementine, and then blood orange……. aaaaand theeeeeeen?

We shall see, we shall see about that…. ;D

Anyhoo, it was always a given that there will be more of these tops in my life. Now the weather is warming up beeeayoutifully I dug the pattern out again…. there really should be some sort of award for best pattern of the year or something. Oh, that’s right! there is and this pattern is!

Fancy that!

So, what you may not realise straight away, but
which I shall hasten to enlighten you asap, is that this is not just the same
pattern as my first clementine version, but actually the very same fabric too. Yup, the very same! Except that it has been dyed with iDye in Brown, … to imbue the original pinky-orange with the deep, rich, sophisticated mahogany that awaits one inside a blood orange. The warp and the weft; originally a light pumpkin and a bright neon orange, picked up the brown dye to become nutmeg brown and burgundy respectively…

This same fabric also played a supporting role in
this post too, providing an appropriately, complex-ly colourful backdrop to some also dyed underthingies.

Now it has shed its one
dimensional role as just a prettily colourful piece of fabric folded in the stash,
and join instead the brave new 3D world of Things One Actually Puts On.

So, fronties; backies. Because of a lack of fabric I cut the back pieces on a centre fold.

The pointies meet up just exactly as they should…

all French seams-ies…

Lingerie strappy thingies…. These were a gift from
the gorgeous Yoshimi. Thank you
Yoshimi!

I didn’t realise at first, until I was filling in
the details bit I always put at the end of every post; that the skirt I am wearing
it with here is in with the same pattern as the top, and is also dyed with iDye in
Brown too. Hmmm, predictable,
repetitive, stuck in a rut; or what?

Maybe I need to get me some new patterns, or new
dyes, or new ideas or something…

Kidding of course, This pattern is da bomb! This may not even be the
last version to be seen here on the blog this year…. stay
tuned!

Details:

Top; Vogue 1247, in clementine shot cotton overdyed by me with ¼ tsp iDye in Brown here, and my review of this top pattern here

Skirt; Vogue 1247, red cotton velveteen, ombre dyed
with iDye in Brown, details here, and my review of this skirt pattern here

Shoes; from Misano

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dyeing, top, Vogue 1247

Slender Man

31/10/2012 2:30 pm \ 38 Comments \ Carolyn

Have you ever played Slender?
Hands down. Scariest. Game. Ever!
Our family has been playing this free-downloadable a bit… and if you can first-time play this in a darkened room without emitting even one girly scream….? well actually I do not believe anyone can!
When I was a kiddie growing up Halloween was completely unknown in Australia. When I had my own children we’d heard of it by then but it was not observed at all. Nowadays it is creeping in! stalking up on us like Slender Man upon its prey…. 😉

And Tim wanted to be the Slender Man.
Of course one is interested in what one’s children are interested in, right? and the funny thing is that my adult children and their friends have Halloween parties and love to dress up, any excuse for a party….! So yeah.
I even went out today and bought some mini Mars bars too, in case we got some trick-or-treaters…. hoo boy, I am mellowing out; hehe!

I made a Slender Man mask. It is as close a copy as I could get to a morph mask. I made it using a white poly/lycra from Fabulous Fabrics; very light and thin and stretchy stooff. The front has a “chin” and I put in a short zip at the back to help put it on over his head. The zip I had leftover from when I was making these little jeans purses.

The verdict: True story…
I looked up and he was suddenly there, in the room, and I admit to a small double take.
I’m like, “ooh that’s spooky, Tim.”
Silence.
“Tim?”
More silence. Brief moment of freaked out hesitation…
“Tim!?”
Finally he says, “yeah, so whaddya think?”
I’m like, ” Whoar, don’t scare me like that!!”

Later edit: don’t worry, Tim did not go door-knocking… this outfit was worn to a private party only 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: costumes, fancy dress, Tim

A petticoat and an ISTJ

30/10/2012 11:00 pm \ 24 Comments \ Carolyn

OK, so I have posted about this new… er, thing before; and in a comment janesewandtell expressed surprise that a petticoat should have a zip … the answer of course is that even though I did describe it as a “petticoat” of course it really was only masquerading as a petticoat. Actually it is a bonafide dress, and can very well be worn as one!

So I thought it really deserves its very own post to show what it looks like on! Since it has a fitted bodice it does need a zip so that I can actually get it on and off. I supposed I described it as a petticoat since it is made of a lusciously soft silk that is kinda flimsy. Meaning it can be worn underneath a loose lightweight thing like my tunic top and function quite well as a slip. But the fact is that as the weather warms up this is the kind of light and airy sundress I will love to pop on and wear on its own too!

So here ’tis!

And sorry to mess with your heads, but I’ve accordingly copied the petticoat/dress’s info from the original post it shared with the tunic top to here 🙂

I used Burda 8071, a terrific basic pattern I have used ten times before; for ten different dresses and petticoats. This is the eleventh! To see a gallery of my previous versions of this pattern, go here 🙂 The bodice is lined with ivory silk charmeuse, leftover fabric from this top.

All the seams are French seams and all other raw edges are finished with HongKong seaming, in a lightweight ice-blue cotton leftover from this shirt.

Details:

Dress/petticoat; Burda 8071, powder blue silk

Sorry, you can’t see them very well in the picture above but I am wearing these sandals; a gift from Misano.

I loved reading about sewbusylizzy’s Myers-Briggs personality! and no one is going to be surprised to find out that I am a ISTJ; the Examiner, or the Duty Fulfiller. The type of person who sees out to the bitter end what she has started even if she is hating it. This explains why I am dutifully continuing with the year of self-auditing my sewing habit, which I am heartily wishing I had not started… is everyone bored stiff with my meticulously accurate but excruciatingly dull accounting?? That’s OK. I wouldn’t blame you one little bit 🙂

OK, the Organisational Odds n’ sods for October…

Cut me a little black skirt

Fabric;
a re-fashioned ball gown

Patterns;
Vogue 1170, used previously

Zip; recycled from the same dress

Hook
& eye; from stash

Total
cost: free

Stellar lingerie set

Fabric;
leftovers

Pattern;
used previously

Dye; (first time used, bought at a 30%off everything sale at Spotlight) $7.77

Bra cups; $12.95